More stupid hand-wringing over “Nigger”

“I’m very disappointed,” Rev. Al Sharpton said today about the news that Rev. Jesse Jackson used the “N-word” during the same off-camera moment recently in which Jackson uttered a crude remark about Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama.

I’m actually commenting on a video you posted on the Atlantic, but I can’t post there, having run out of funds for subscribing to every other literary publication.

On the subject of Zora Hurston, you stated, “I’m not interested in changing the minds of white folks…or black folks, either…” I don’t think that Zora Hurston could have stated it better. As you know, she was a Republican, and even opposed civil rights legislation, saying that it was insulting to legislate who had to sit beside her against their will.

Zora Hurston, when assigned by the Pittsburgh Courier to cover the trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy black woman who shot and killed her white physician and senator-elect paramour, was told by the editor, Sam Nunn, to go to Live Oak, Florida where the murder took place and find out how they were railroading this “colored woman.”

Instead, Zora went to Live Oak with her own head on her shoulders and discovered, instead, a complex web of subterranean affairs between “coloreds” and “whites” in a town with many secrets.

I became fascinated with Hurston about 15 years ago, read all of her works–yes, Their Eyes Were Watching God is magnificent–and was intrigued with the Ruby McCollum story since it took place in my hometown and represented a “slice of life” of that era as I remember it.

You can see the book video trailer of Zora Hurston And The Strange Case Of Ruby McCollum on Youtube by searching Zora Hurston and clicking on the image of a bronze-skinned woman with a white man opening her blouse. You can also preview the book on Amazon.

I have to say that it is refreshing to hear the voice of the spiritual lineage of Hurston. We need it.